The Dying of the Light

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Scott

Puritan Board Graduate
I am reading through The Dying of the Light: The Disengagement of Colleges and Universities from Their Christian Churches . It is an eye-opening case studies of the process of how 17 Christian universities and colleges became secular.

Instead of me summarzing what I found, I thought I would excerpt from this review, which is a good summary:

Many readers will begin this book expecting a story something like this: Founders set up Christian institutions, where there was a vital link between faith and intellectual investigation. Colleges and denominations worked closely together to their mutual benefit. Over time the colleges accepted the secular academy's definition of excellence, and abandoned their Christian roots. The churches were left like a deserted spouse.

Burtchaell argues that the stories are all much more complex than this, and that elements of that view are simply wrong. Many of the initial links between church and college were for convenience only ­ the church was necessary for existence, providing both revenue and students. Education was not Christian in most cases, but classical, patterned after Greek ideals of learning and virtue. There was little or no academic study of the Christian faith, \"no respectable Bible study.\" Religion on campus was at times vital and active in personal lives, but there was little or no link between personal religion and academic course work. Often, religion was seen as important on these campuses primarily because of its impact on behavior, not because it presented unique and valued insights into the intellectual activities.

In this atmosphere, when other sources of financing and students became available, colleges systematically but carefully moved away from their religious roots. Carnegie money for professors' retirement is available only to \"non-sectarian\" institutions, so a number of colleges show that they comply; there is a vague possibility that government grants may be limited to institutions not connected with a particular denomination, so governance is changed; graduate programs without any Christian component or requirement make money, so they are added; students from outside the denomination are necessary for existence, so they are welcomed; when these students complain about chapel, it first becomes non-religious and then is eliminated. One of the central stories here is that institutions, even those founded for a specific religious purpose, very quickly come to see continued existence as their primary goal; if religious affiliation is perceived to raise the probability of failure, then goodbye religious affiliation.

The faculty play a key role in secularization in most institutions. The author contends that even at the beginning, most faculty members did not have sufficient grounding in theology, philosophy, and history to see how faith could inform intellectual inquiry. Instead, the faculty served initially as role models of men of personal faith, often leading religious services on campus. Some institutions required agreement to a confessional statement of all faculty. But as professors began to specialize and identify themselves more as professional academics than Christian teachers, as they began to move from institution to institution during a career, faculty as a whole lost interest in their religious role, turning their responsibilities over to the administration. The administration, in turn, often turned these roles over to \"religious functionaries,\" sidelining religion from all of the important parts of the institution, relegating it to at best a minor role on campus. In consequence, confessional statements for faculty generally were ignored, then watered down, then dropped altogether. So when in 1996 Davidson removed the final requirement of religious affiliation on its faculty ­ that members of the religion department must be Christians ­ \"several current members said they had not been aware of the requirement when they were hired.\" (232)

One of the surprises in these stories is that the churches most often did nothing at all to stop the process of secularization. In no case did a denomination use its authority to ensure that its colleges live up to their religious commitments. Sometimes an orthodox president, trustee, or local pastor would take a stand, trying to stop the process, but often these attempts backfired ­ either by creating tension that the next president resolved through a fuzzy redefining of the college's religious mission, \"saying much and affirming little\" (825), (inevitably leading to further secularization), or by taking such an obviously anti-intellectual position that those who might have supported a true Christian retrenchment find themselves in the other camp.
 
That's very interesting. I'd like to check out that book. I'd also like to read more on the secularization process at Harvard, Yale, and a few other schools of interest.

I note that the reviewer graduated from Davidson which one of the colleges is covered in the book. My father is a graduate of Davidson and a former professor there, and my mother has lived in Davidson for almost 30 years. I used to attend the Davidson College Presbyterian Church. Knowing what it is like today, it came as a surprise when I learned that Davidson's first President was the father-in-law of Stonewall Jackson, and that Robert Dabney lectured there near the end of his life. Davidson College has a remarkable history.

The Dying of the Light was published in 1998 but there have been developments in the area of religious affiliation at Davidson since then: John Belk (a well-known name in North Carolina) resigned from the Davidson College Board of Trustees last year when the college approved a provision allowing 20% of the board to be non-Christian, as well as other changes to the mission of the college. This is the kind of warped perspective on religion found at Davidson today.

A little bit of trivia: Back in the late 1980's I worked for a summer at the Davidon College Library. My supervisor was Mary Beaty, the definitive historian of Davidson College, and assistant director of the Library. She later translated a book called Calvin's Ecclesiastical Advice, which was published for the first time in English in 1991.

[Edited on 8-23-2006 by VirginiaHuguenot]
 
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